Introduction. The 21st century defi nes the trends of progress of such values as quality, perfection, perspicacity. In the vernacular, quality is a set of features and virtues which determine an esthetic, practical and utilitarian function of a product, in this case – medical service [1]. Medical care for schoolchildren in Poland has the tradition of more than one hundred years. Over the century it has adopted different forms within both medical and nursing care. Those changes concerned the organisational sphere as well as the main directions of the medical care concept, which was closely related with legislative changes [2]. According to World Health Organization, prophylactic medical care for students should make an important element of the school’s program of health promotion. According with the binding regulations [3], prophylactic medical care should include all students up to 19 years of age.

Material and methods. The survey included 128 school nurses/matrons, i.e. about ¼ of the total number employed in Lublin Province. During the 2006/2007 school year those nurses/matrons performed prophylactic care for 75 310 students attending primary, lower secondary, secondary, technical secondary schools, vocational as well as special schools with 1747 handicapped students.